


Monstra et Homines

by Not_You



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Cutting, Diary/Journal, Drug Use, F/M, Gross, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Knifeplay, M/M, Masturbation, Memories, Multi, Neck Kissing, Nightmares, Open Marriage, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sharing Clothes, Shyness, Vaginal Fisting, Wet Dream, almost First Time Blow Jobs, alternate universe-less supernatural stuff is going on, creepy-ass imagery as one might expect in something Amnesia-based, daniel is a nervous bunny, daniel's father made medicalized threats against his cock and that's terrible, did i say mega-happy?, tasty tasty laudanum, weird mega-happy alternate universe where alexander isn't a monster and daniel isn't either
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:18:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 20,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4857764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even without the Shadow at his heels, Daniel is having a rough time after his return from Algeria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_14th July, 1839  
They say that the Baron can help me. In this shadow London composed of men and monsters like myself, the Baron is as much a fixture as a man whose primary residence is in Prussia can be. Apparently Herbert has written him on my behalf, and his letter to me says that he will protect me. I can only imagine what could motivate him. I know that he shares the most unspeakable of my vices and that every refuge has its price, but I have no choice. All I have is this journal, the clothes on my back, and my bizarre, broken, Algerian prize. It would be different if Hazel were still alive._

_I wonder if he even is a real baron. And I hope I can sleep tonight, and that Dr. Tate can prescribe something stronger tomorrow._

Daniel wakes slowly, his head pounding. It's hard to be sure how much is from the drinking, how much is bruising, and how much comes from sheer nervous strain. The nightmares have hardly stopped since Algeria, and he hauls himself upright on shaky legs. He has gotten used to sweating so much in his sleep that it feels like he wet the bed, but there's still a moment of disoriented and particular shame as two beads of fluid roll down his thigh before he fully remembers what they are. The truth is pathetic enough, and he dries off as best he can with the dingy linen. He can't afford even this wretched hotel room for much longer, especially in the face of having to buy weak laudanum every few days. 

He takes a long draught of the bitter potion now, and grimaces. He has never liked mirrors and enjoys them even less now that he's so obviously a shattered shell of a man, but he shuffles over to the glass on the wall and uses the dust-brackish water from the ewer to attempt a decent wash. In keeping with the general squalor, the basin is chipped and none too clean, but at least Daniel can get the worst of the sweat off of his skin and can comb his hair into some kind of order. It's getting too long, and that fact is one of many that he can't bring himself to care about. He gazes into his reflection's bloodshot eyes and hopes that whatever the baron's price is that he's not too physically repugnant to pay it.

_17th July, 1839  
I'm used to the dreams about Hazel, and about my mother and father, but now my dreams are full of blood and flayed skin and come night after night and I cannot bear it. Something inside me is as broken as this relic, and I may leave the baron for a sanitarium whether I enjoy his company or not._

At least Daniel has the stronger solution provided by the ever-solicitous Dr. Tate, and even when he wakes with screams locked in his throat he can scrabble for the narrow bottle beside his bed. He never has been able to stand the dark, and it's worse than ever now. The hotel management is far too cheap to have gas laid on in the bedrooms, and every night Daniel has to hope that his candle doesn't cause a fire. Now hot wax stings his shaking hand as he grasps the bottle and tips the last of it into his mouth, gagging at the bitterness. His stomach churns and he lies in the dark and stares at the candle the way he used to do as a child. 

He counts slowly backward from five hundred, and by the time he reaches twenty or so the nausea has faded and the comforting warmth of the drug has suffused his body. He takes a deep breath and then bites his lip to keep back a sob as his eyes well up, a single tear rolling down his left cheek and into his ear, just one more tiny misery. He cries himself to sleep, being as quiet as he can.

In the morning, Daniel forces himself into some semblance of respectability, and packs up his few things. The baron has supposedly arranged a train ticket for him, and he goes to the station to check. Giving his name to the man at the counter he feels furtive and loathsome, a creeping abomination in a bad pretense of human form. He's suddenly sure that the entire thing is a pathetic joke, and that he'll be arrested or turned away to find some even lower lodging to suffer in.

“Here we are,” the man says, “one first class ticket to Brighton, reserved for Mr. Daniel Tash in the name of one Alexander von Brennenburg.”

“Thank you,” Daniel says, his mouth dry. “We don't set out until evening, do we?”

“No sir, you do not,” he says, and Daniel thanks him again before going in search of strong tea. He has no real baggage and few connections, and so after finding a small restaurant and ingesting an entire pot of tea and as much toast as he can possibly bear, he wanders the pavement in a mournful fugue, silently saying goodbye to London with the dismal sense that he probably won't live to see it again unless something changes.

When it's late enough, Daniel goes back to the hotel to settle his bill and claim his single bag. He counts his money and hopes to God that the baron has reserved another ticket or two down the line, and then drags himself back to the station. There's the usual terror of the dark, but soon he's in his compartment with the light on, tipping tiny doses of laudanum into his tea.

He continues this on the ship across the channel, and in trains and then coaches across France and Prussia. The baron pays his passage the whole way, and Daniel tries not to think about what he'll be doing in return. This man must be expecting a catamite, and Daniel isn't sure which he hates more, the fear, or the guilty little curl of desire in his belly.


	2. Chapter 2

_2nd August, 1839  
I have arrived at the village of Altstadt, a profound relief after so much time in this dark, nearly trackless forest. This is my last stop before I reach Castle Brennenburg. We could have pushed on tonight, but the outrider who has been with the coach since Bremen advised against continuing until tomorrow morning, and I am in no position to argue._

_I have arranged for a bed at Der Muhle, the village's only inn. I might as well not have done so, for I am sitting up to write this and waiting for sunrise. Any time I close my eyes I see something from my dreams. The only question is which are worse, the terrifying or the obscene._

_I am a contemptible creature, indeed._

In the end Daniel does sleep, but only for an hour or two. He wakes up with his heart racing and only a vague sense of monstrous visions. He can't even be sure which type of monstrous, making this a relatively good morning. He untangles himself from the sheets and does the best he can to make himself fit to meet nobility. The baron is most definitely the real thing, and Daniel grimaces at his available shirts. He only has three, and none of them are truly white anymore. He selects the best of them and manages to shave without cutting himself. There's nothing to be done about his pallor or his bloodshot eyes, but he looks slightly less like the desperate man that he is.

The outrider is as grim as ever, and just barely nods when Daniel steps into the inn-yard. It's still early, but the forest is suffused with soft light. When Daniel shivers it really is only the morning chill, and he stares out the window as the coach winds up the road to Castle Brennenburg, fascinated by the vast old trees and the rugged landscape. The castle, when it looms up ahead of them, seems like a natural part of the mountains. The outrider sweeps ahead to announce them, and the massive gate is standing open when the coach rattles through it. Daniel shivers, look around at the towers of grey stone. The place is beautiful and even soothing, in its sombre way, but now he must face the baron, and learn the price of safety.

The servants who let them into the vast entrance hall could be twins, a pair of enormous and silent men with scarred faces that make Daniel more nervous than he already was. They bow normally enough and one takes his bag, however, so he follows them inside after thanking the coachman and the outrider, both of them already well-paid for their trouble by the baron.

One servant takes his bag to the guest room he'll be using, and it's a huge relief to know that he will have somewhere of his own to retreat to. The other leads him up stairs and through strange corridors until they find themselves in a high, sunlit room with vast windows. It seems a comfortable place.

“Lord Brennenburg, Mr. Tash,” the servant says. His voice is a deep rumble, and Daniel bows and then straightens again, eying the old man in his armchair. His hair is much longer than Daniel's current shaggy state, and it's pure white with age, though his face shows evidence of having been handsome in his youth. His nose is perhaps overlarge, but Daniel is far from perfectly proportioned, himself.

“Good morning, my lord,” Daniel offers, and the baron smiles.

“Good morning, Daniel. Please, call me Alexander.” His grip when he shakes Daniel's hand is surprisingly strong, but also very gentle. Daniel's nervousness takes on a character that he doesn't want to think about. He smiles, returning the clasp without lingering.

“Thank you, Alexander,” he says.

“Have you broken your fast, Daniel?”

Daniel has not, and in fact couldn't face dinner the night before at Der Muhle. His stomach doesn't growl on cue, but it does seize and clench with a ravenous hunger that leaves him dizzy. Alexander briefly grips his shoulder, looking at him with dark, piercing eyes. “I see that you have not. I'll have something prepared and brought here, the dining room is far too large for two.”

Daniel mumbles his thanks and lets the massive and silent servant lead him away to a beautiful guest room with an adjoining study. There's hot water waiting for him, as well as a fresh shirt. He feels more than a bit odd about taking it, but the mirror reveals a man who would be allowed into respectable establishments only with great wariness, and so hangs his jacket by the fire to let the warmth do what it can for the creases and then bathes himself more thoroughly and puts the crisp, white shirt on over his bony shoulders. It would be too tight if he hadn't lost so much weight over the past two months. The sleeves are also a little too long, and he flushes all over when the realizes that it was almost certainly tailored for the baron. For Alexander. There's a pair of sleeve garters, and he adjusts the fit, feeling marked.

“Mr. Tash?” one of the servants rumbles, and Daniel jumps at least a foot and half into the air, landing with his hand over his pounding heart.

“Don't do that!” he snaps, and then feels awful at the look on that brutish face. “I'm sorry, my man,” he says, briefly touching the massive arm, “I'm just extremely nervous.”

“His Lordship said we weren't to agitate you,” the man says, seeming soothed but still abashed. “Please sir, don't tell him I agitated you.”

Daniel smiles. “I won't. Now, lead me through this maze so that we don't keep his lordship waiting.”

The man smiles back, and points out helpful landmarks as they make their way back to the sitting room where he met Alexander. Daniel already knows that the absolutely _bizarre_ cherub-faced centipede fountain will be a great help to him.


	3. Chapter 3

The meal on offer is nothing like a proper British breakfast, and Daniel is glad of that. These days meat repels him, and fatty meat is still worse, so he's glad to see bread, fresh milk and butter, and an enormous bowl of blackberries instead. There's also a pot of what turns out to be wonderfully strong tea, and a much less brutish manservant pours for both of them. He looks like the most formidable and correct servants Daniel has seen in the West End until Alexander thanks him for arranging things so nicely, and he beams. Alexander smiles in return, the expression warm and fond, and the servant is still smiling as he bows and obeys Alexander's lazy gesture to leave them.

Daniel stares down into his tea and swallows hard. “Thank you for having me here, Alexander.”

“You are more than welcome.” Daniel looks up to see him carefully adding milk to his cup, and no sugar. “Herbert has given me to understand that you have run afoul of the current perilously narrow definition of masculinity.”

“I... I suppose that's one way to put it,” Daniel says, watching as Alexander selects and consumes a single berry. He has long, capable hands.

“These things were better understood by the Greeks.” He takes a sip of tea, watching Daniel over the rim. “The Romans as well. Surely a man in your field knows that.”

Daniel's face is so hot that it must be the brightest red his skin is capable of as he remembers his visit to the Reserved Cabinet at the British Museum. “I have heard something to that effect.”

Alexander chuckles. “Herbert mentioned your trip to Britain's little cabinet of perturbation in one of his letters. I find it a charming place, and full of historical interest.”

Daniel lets out the kind of nervous little giggle that he keeps hoping he has outgrown, and manages to meet Alexander's eyes again. “Is it wrong that I was reassured to learn that the ancient Romans were capable of being so prurient?”

“Not at all. Prurience is a universal constant.”

This comment brings Daniel's nerves back to the fore, and he forces himself to butter a roll in order to have something to do with his hands. “That being the case, sir, I have been meaning to enquire as to the... conditions, of my stay.”

“There are none, my friend, save that you rest and heal.”

“I... I don't know how to thank you.”

“There are things that do not need words to be understood.”

After that Daniel is able to eat, and to thank Alexander for the loan of the shirt and even to talk a little about Mayfair and the less-terrible parts of his trip to Algeria. He doesn't mention Hazel, and he only says that his father struck him when they argued in mid-July, glossing over a beating that left him with injuries that still hurt a little now, in the beginning of August.

For his part, Alexander listens, gently encourages Daniel to eat more, and tells him stories of his youth spent traveling the globe. He taught Herbert a good part of what he knows, and seems very pleased with himself when he makes Daniel laugh. He promises him to show him where the berries grow, and also to order some clothes for Daniel, waving off his weak protests. He also mentions his good friend Agrippa, named for Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa by strange and studious parents.

“You probably won't see him for some time,” Alexander says. “He's deeply engaged in his research.”

Daniel just nods and butters another roll. Once he can eat no more, unused to anything like a full meal, Alexander shows him to the library and helps him to choose a few books to give him something to do while he rests and gets used to his room. Daniel isn't sure just what a baron does day to day, but Alexander seems to want to get back to it, so Daniel retires to his room, curling up atop the green bedspread.

After all those years of reading to Hazel, Daniel has become used to the sound of his own voice, and reads aloud even without an audience. He knows Pride and Prejudice almost by heart now, but begins it again, soothed by the familiar words. The story catches hold of him the way it used to, and he has just murmured his way to the introduction of Charlotte Lucas when a thunderous knock on the door sends his heart into his throat. He scrambles to sit up from his undignified sprawl.

“Come in!”

“Did I agitate you?” asks the enormous servant at the door. He's a different enormous servant from the ones Daniel has already met, but the resemblance is uncanny.

“Only a little,” he says, catching his breath. “Perhaps knock more quietly next time.”

“Yes, Mr. Tash. We were wondering if you wanted a real bath.”

“...That's an option?” Daniel had assumed that a castle would have hip baths, and that it would be far too much trouble to prepare one for him so quickly.

“We have all kinds of pipes, sir.”

This is apparently the extent of his understanding, and he leads Daniel down a spiral staircase to a room with a massive sunken tub that makes Daniel think of ancient Romans again. There's enough room for ten people and the water is gloriously hot. It's a little dim for Daniel's taste, windowless and lit only by a hanging lamp and a few candles in each corner, but it's more than worth it to get truly clean again and to let the heat melt tensions out of his body that he didn't even realize it was holding. He stays in the water until his whole body is flushed bright pink and the skin of his fingertips is starting to wrinkle. Sitting around in a dressing gown afterward, he feels better than he has in months.


	4. Chapter 4

Daniel can already tell that he'll eventually be bored of sitting in a guest room reading, but he's so grateful to have a safe place to rest that it will probably take a long time. He stays in the dressing gown all day and goes to bed early, stretched out on his belly and trying to keep ink off of the sheets as he updates his journal.

_August 3rd, 1839_

_I feel as though I am in another world, one at once uncanny and kind. Brennenburg is a massive building on a forested hill. Parts of it are more like a cathedral than a castle, and it is only the strange fountain in the hall below my room that lets me know it when I wend my way there. Even Alexander, the baron, admits that he has no records of whoever thought that a cherub-faced centipede and the bottom half of a female nude was a good idea._

_Alexander is very peculiar, but also well-versed in worldly matters and willing to harbour me for as long as I need him to do. My room is delightfully comfortable and has its own fireplace and a great many candles already, so I shall not have to humiliate myself by requesting them._

_As the sun sets on Brennenburg its effect becomes less like that of a fairy-tale and more like a Gothic novel. Alexander's strange servants are never far away, and they are very quiet right until they appear out of nowhere beside me with some kind of loud noise. As far as I have seen they are clumsy and not over-bright, but also goodhearted and attentive._

_Alexander seems genuinely happy to have me here as well as being dedicated to the cause of feeding me. He says that I have arrived just in time to prevent my health from being irretrievably ruined, and he may be right._

Daniel waits for the page to dry, and actually feels drowsy by the time he sets it aside. A small dose of laudanum, and he's even thinking soothing thoughts instead of horrible ones. He's remembering the good times with Hazel, sitting in the nice, clean, bright sanitarium and reading her book after book. He isn't remembering the end, with Hazel so terribly, terribly lucid through the pain. He isn't remembering Father or Mother or anything that happened in Algeria. None of that matters just now. He snuggles down into the mattress and drifts down to sleep like a feather falling.

Even before anything terrible has happened, Daniel is nervous within his dream. Every dream he has remembered for the past three months has been terrible in some way. It isn't always shambling monsters rending him limb from limb, and it isn't always Hazel dying.

This time it's the desert. The air shimmers over the trackless drifts of yellow sand and this dream of Algeria is hotter even than the real thing. Daniel can see his breath in paradoxical clouds as he pants with the effort of walking in fine sand with no proper land beneath it.

“It's your saliva evaporating,” a shadow beside him says.

“Then why doesn't it hurt?” Daniel asks, struggling forward over the dunes in a direction that looks the same as all the others, for some compelling reason that escapes him now.

“Oh, it does hurt,” the shadow says, floating along beside him. It's roughly the size of a man, but has almost no shape, nothing but a patch of impossible darkness so deep that it makes Daniel's eyes hurt more than the brightness of the sun. Even with light all around him Daniel feels his old terror of the dark, so much keener since Algeria, and his tongue is stuffing his mouth with wet flesh that he can barely swallow around. It still doesn't hurt, even though it's swelling and blistering, the burned skin cracked and bleeding as it engorges enough to hang out of his mouth and down onto his chest, monstrous and disgusting.

“It hurts a lot,” the shadow says, “but you don't always know it.”

Daniel gags and struggles to reply as he falls forward onto his knees and the sun goes out like a candle. The sudden darkness paralyzes him, and he can't even whimper around his grotesque mockery of a tongue. An infernal red glow just barely limns the vacant disc of the sun, making it a hateful, burning ring. The edges of the shadow are lit the same way, so Daniel can see it growing into a massive and still nearly-formless giant as the earth shakes beneath him and it lets out a bizarre and horrible roar, a sound so loud that he can feel it as much as hear it, and he struggles to scream, tearing at his malformed tongue and even as parts come loose it still doesn't hurt and he can't breathe and chokes on small, hard things that must be his own teeth and then wakes himself up with his own screaming.

Daniel has gotten into a habit of jerking himself awake while he's still only making little grunts and whimpers in the waking world, or of biting onto the blanket in his sleep, but tonight he wakes to find himself screaming unobstructed, the raw, shrill terror in it frightening him even more as it echoes off the walls.


	5. Chapter 5

The door bursts open and in Daniel's current state that only frightens him more, but it's only Alexander. He's wrapped in a deep red dressing gown made of some costly fabric and he looks concerned. “Daniel,” he says, sweeping over to sit on the edge of the bed, “are you all right?”

Daniel means to say something polite, but what comes out is, “N-n-no,” as he tries and fails to stop shaking.

“More nightmares?” he asks softly, pushing a lock of Daniel's hair out of his face. His hand is dry and cool against Daniel's fevered skin.

“Yes,” he says softly. “Did I wake you? I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. Come, I'll have tea brought to the parlor.”

Before Daniel can say anything about not taking any trouble, he's gone. After a moment more to sit in the warm yellow circle of lantern light and catch his breath, Daniel gets up and washes his face and combs his hopelessly disarrayed hair. His hands are still shaking a little, and he feels ridiculous, but once he gets into his borrowed dressing gown and slippers, he heads out into the dim, crooked hallway. He gets lost on the way, trips down some steps and loses his grip on his candle, which hits the stone floor, rolls a few inches, and goes out.

Daniel is just at the beginning of a new corridor, but it diverges from his dim previous path into deepest darkness, the kind that makes him choke and feel like he'll go mad if he doesn't find a source of light, however dim. He's scrambling for the candle even though he doesn't have a tinderbox when one of the servants appears right beside him without a sound. He lets out a little blubbering noise of utter terror and then feels horrible for it as the man lights his candle for him and apologizes for forgetting that a guest would need more torches.

“Th-thank you,” Daniel whispers, wondering if his voice will ever sound strong again. Maybe it never has. He broods on this the entire way to Alexander's parlor, but can't help but feel a little better in the presence of a roaring fire, a pot of tea, and a plate of buttered toast. Alexander is ensconced in a massive armchair, and gestures for Daniel to take the matching one opposite him.

Alexander thanks the servant, who bows and departs. Before he can stop himself, Daniel asks, “What happened to his face?” He cringes as the words leave his mouth, but Alexander merely raises an eyebrow.

“There are many ways to acquire scars in these mountains. Most of my staff joined because they got tired of it.”

Daniel blinks. “So this is the soft option, when one wearies of, of lumberjacking?”

Alexander chuckles. “Essentially, yes. Now drink your tea, Daniel. It will do you good.” He mumbles his thanks and loads his tea with sugar and milk, the childish mixture comforting at a time like this. His hands are just steady enough to manage, and he can feel Alexander watching him. “Have you always been so frightened of the dark?”

“I... it's been worse. Lately.”

“I see.”

Alexander doesn't press Daniel about the dream or the circumstances that drove him here. That's probably why Daniel starts telling him about it after two pieces of toast and half of a second cup of tea. “My sister Hazel died soon after my return from Algeria,” he says, and Alexander sighs.

“My condolences.”

“Thank you. She... she was born unwell, and she lasted years longer than anyone aside from myself thought she would. She lasted to see me come home from Algeria tired and high-strung, but not hounded by nightmares.” He smiles sadly, because those had been better days than they really should have. They had been frail together, and the nurses had been gentle and caring and Hazel had had family with her in the end. “The dreams started after she died.” Alexander just nods and waits for him to continue. “I needed a distraction.” He can feel himself blushing, and he stares down into his tea. “According to Herbert you and I share a... a certain vice. I became just careless enough for my father to find out about it.”

“Were you betrayed?” Alexander asks, and his voice is still gentle, but gives the impression of a threat toward this unworthy third party all the same. 

Daniel's stomach flutters and he can't even be sure that it's fear. “No,” he says softly. “I stayed out too late, kept some notes I should not have, and had a book of Catullus he had 'heard dodgy things about.'” Daniel shivers. “Before, I would have tried to placate him somehow. When we were children I took as many of the beatings meant for her that I could catch, and when we were older he could have forbade me to see her. But she was already decently buried, and with nothing to lose I got so angry that I told him the truth, that I am a damned invert and that even so I'm less of a monster than he is.”

“Are we monsters then, Daniel?” He doesn't sound angry at all, merely curious and a little sad, but Daniel chokes on his tea, stammering apologies and backpedaling as best he can. Alexander holds up a hand and the gesture silences him. “You are very young, and you need my protection. You will be hard-pressed to truly offend me.”

“Thank you,” Daniel whispers, and Alexander smiles softly.

“My poor boy, you are not a monster.” He pauses. “Well. If you are, it has nothing to do with your inversion.”


	6. Chapter 6

By the time Daniel is anything like calm again, the sun has risen and there's no real point in going back to bed. Alexander orders a lavish breakfast and lets Daniel know that he might run into Agrippa today, because he has been at his work for days now and will need to tear himself away from it to rest his mind.

“When I have time,” he adds, “I'll show you the laboratories and the wine cellar.”

Daniel thanks him for the promised tour, and then spends another idle day, though he does bother to dress. He feels a bit guilty for doing nothing, but the work in Algeria was hard and he hasn't really been able to rest since his return to London. He gets one of the massive servants to take him into one of the towers to get a better look at the surrounding countryside, and it's such a gorgeous panorama that he stays there for some time making sketches.

The servants are much easier to deal with by daylight, though they do still walk silently and knock loudly, startling him a few times. One of these visits is the most correct of the group, however, and he announces his presence without alarming Daniel at all. He's here to take the lunch dishes and to give Daniel a tonic brewed by Alexander himself. It's an interesting pinkish color and smells faintly of Damascus rose.

“It is to help you sleep, sir,” he says, very carefully. The whole household speaks good English, and this is the first time any of them has sounded like he has to really think about making the words. Daniel thanks him, and he beams again in that way so at odds with the rest of his appearance. Daniel has to smile back.

“What's your name?” he asks as the man arranges the tray for transport, his hands dexterous and assured.

“Hansel, sir,” he says, and something in the careful words and the expression in his eyes comes together and makes Daniel wonder if he's somehow slow, something Daniel has never seen in a servant at this rank. A childhood friend's family had had an excellent scullery maid who had been slow, but that's a much less complicated position.

“I see,” he says. “Thank you for being so considerate when you came in.”

Hansel has to take a long moment to parse that, and then smiles again. “You're welcome, sir,” he says, and hovers for a moment to be sure Daniel doesn't require anything else before taking the tray and vanishing off down the grey corridor. Since it's only early afternoon, Daniel studies the tonic rather than taking it. He has heard of Damascus rose as a hypnotic, and supposes he should take a break from the laudanum before it turns him into a sot.

Alexander has recommended that Daniel bathe every day as a form of mild hydrotherapy, and after making sure that the tonic shows no signs of tipping over, he drapes his dressing gown over his arm and makes his way to the bath. The towels there are constantly replenished, and the lantern kept lit. Daniel is afraid that he'll have to step into the darkness to light the candles himself, but they're already glowing softly in their corners. He carefully disrobes and folds his clothes, padding to the edge of the tub and then staring at the ancient man resting on the submerged bench. He's utterly still, so thin that it borders on emaciation, and as Daniel stares and stares at him, his chest doesn't move.

Daniel is suddenly and completely certain that the man is dead, and reality wobbles for a moment before he can force himself to climb down into the tub, the water barely rippling around him as he makes his slow way over to the corpse. He's just wondering how to most respectfully haul it out when it snorts loudly and opens its eyes. Daniel yelps, jumping back and falling into the waist-high water with a splash.

The man laughs. “Poor boy, did you think that was the end of me? You're not the first. Help an old man up, would you?” Daniel offers his arm, and even weakened as he is now, holding steady as the man heaves himself up is easy. “You are a strong one,” he says, free hand on Daniel's upper arm. He only has a few little wisps of white hair left, but his eyes sparkle with vitality and mischief.

Daniel just blinks at him for a moment, unsure what to say in reply. “Thank you, sir.”

“You must be Daniel, because Alexander said we had a charming British boy staying with us.” He laughs at the look on Daniel's face. “Do you feel that you have come into a lion's den, Daniel?”

“...Honestly, sir,” he says, “Brennenburg feels less like one than most other places I have been to lately.”

“I see,” he says, climbing the steps up and out to wrap a towel around his stick-thin body. “Whatever you have had to run from, we will protect you. I'm sure Alexander has told you as much.”

“He has, sir,” Daniel says, settling onto the bench and watching as the man comes back to sit on the edge and dangle his bony feet in the water.

“Please, call me Agrippa. Named for the scholar when my father didn't want to name me for his obnoxious cousin Heinrich and my mother didn't like 'Cornelius.”” He extends one liver-spotted hand, and Daniel takes it.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Agrippa. Sorry I thought you were dead.”

Agrippa makes a dismissive gesture very like Alexander. “Bah, at eighty it is an easy mistake for anyone to make.”

Daniel of course congratulates him on his great age and good condition for it. By the time he feels sufficiently warmed and relaxed to emerge and dry off, he and Agrippa are becoming good friends, and having a spirited discussion about the symbology of Mirthraism.


	7. Chapter 7

_August 4th, 1839  
The nightmares woke me up in the early morning. I am grieved to record that I screamed loudly enough to wake Alexander as well, but he was very good about it. He asked me to join him in the parlor, where we discussed the unnameable over tea. He claims that we are not monstrous, and given how badly I want to believe that, I'm not sure what to think._

_I am meant to rest, since all this mental strain has probably put me entirely too close to an episode of brain fever, but with a safe place to lay the pieces out, I cannot help but attempt to reassemble the Algerian relic again. The pieces still have that strange, protean quality, and I am writing this now to calm myself for rest after my unnerving work._

Daniel glances at the door as he sets his pen down. Generous as Alexander is, the bedroom has an attached study, and he has left the pieces on a towel on his desk, gleaming softly in the dark. He shudders, and is glad when the fire flares up a little, making the room brighter. The relic frightens him in a way that's hard to describe. It's a little like his inversion, a repulsion against a compelling attraction. Some of the fear is because something so foreign and so ancient shouldn't feel so right in his hands. Every time he thinks about what happened in the tomb of Tin Hanan he shudders at how deeply familiar the place had felt.

Now is probably the time for the rose tonic, and he opens the bottle and drinks one of the six doses marked on the side. The mixture is thick and difficult to swallow, but tastes much better than laudanum. It reminds him a little of Turkish Delight, in fact, and his mouth still tastes of rose after a glass of water. He sinks back into the pillows, running his tongue over his teeth. For the first time in months, Daniel drifts sideways into sleep without noticing. There's no desperate waiting and effort, and he even finds himself somewhere pleasant.

Instead of a dark tomb or a searing desert, he's in what appears to be an English country garden in late spring. He has to find the right flower, but while the task is urgent, it isn't worrying him. He knows that the flower will be found, and for a while of dream-time he simply strolls the paths, glorying in the cool, green-and-blue-and-white-and-gold brightness of everything. There are daffodils and cultured roses and perfect, sky-blue violets, and flowers that he has only seen in books and ones that probably don't exist anywhere else. He doesn't know what his flower looks like, but is certain that he will know it when he sees it. The realization that he is naked is not as awkward as it usually is in Daniel's dreams. He feels slightly concerned, but the sun and the breeze are the perfect temperature, and here's no one around to see him, anyway.

The garden turns into a library very like the one here at Brennenburg, and Daniel goes straight down one narrow, dim, (almost too dim, even in a dream) aisle. There's a rose-colored lamp at the end, though, and it gives Daniel plenty of light by which to pluck the glorious, full-blown Damascus rose that is growing from the shelf as though that is a perfectly normal place for a flower to be.

The flower's transformation into a serpent also seems completely rational and inevitable. Its rosy scales shimmer as it coils around Daniel, gripping him tightly and nuzzling his neck. It speaks softly into his ear in a language he doesn't know and has never even heard of as the library turns into a moonlit ocean where the water caresses him like a pair of long, capable hands.

Daniel wakes up with his heart pounding and his skin covered in sweat as has become so usual, but at least this time he has a different reason for it. Mercifully, he hasn't climaxed in his sleep, and can take care of things cleanly and quietly. Far better to send a rinsed handkerchief to the laundry than a soiled nightshirt. Daniel bites onto his free hand and tries not to whimper too loudly. He doesn't allow himself to do this too often, less alarmed for his vitality or eyesight than of what he might envision while so engaged. Sure enough, this time all he can think about is Alexander, his scent and his hands and his voice. Afterward he's even more ashamed than usual, and doesn't know how he'll face his host again.

At least Agrippa joins them for breakfast, and his happy chatter about his current research fills Daniel's silences. Alexander is attentive, and only stops listening when the post comes. It is irregular here, even for a man of Alexander's wealth and status, and well worthy of consideration. He makes vague noises of affirmation as Agrippa talks, and then his whole face lights up at the sight of a thick missive closed with his own seal. Agrippa goes on for a moment, and then stops and just grins, watching Alexander slit the wax.

“It must be the baroness,” he says quietly, and Daniel gapes at Alexander, a man who claims to understand his compulsions and still looks this happy to receive a letter from his wife. “She is a remarkable lady,” Agrippa adds. “I'm glad that she'll be here during your stay.”

“I must confess myself surprised to learn that there _is_ a baroness,” Daniel says, and Agrippa laughs. Alexander seems deaf and blind to both of them, and actually kisses the letter like he isn't nearly fifty years old. Daniel feels jealous and fond and embarrassed to have seen it at all.


	8. Chapter 8

After breakfast Daniel goes back to working on the orb. It remains recalcitrant, and it's nearly noon when Agrippa knocks on the study door.

“Daniel?”

“Come in!” he calls, sitting back from the fragments.

“Ah, I see that you, too, are engrossed when I am free,” Agrippa says, lingering on the threshold. “I can come back.”

“I was just getting fed up with this again,” Daniel says. “Please, sit down.”

Agrippa pulls up a chair, leaning in to examine the piece. “You know, Daniel, I think I have seen something like this before.”

“You have?” Daniel squawks.

“Indeed! You should let Alexander and me help you.” He chuckles. “When we can tear him away from from his preparations for her ladyship's return, of course.”

Something about Agrippa's good cheer makes Daniel blurt out, “He told me he was an invert!” The note of betrayal in his voice is entirely too obvious. Agrippa cackles, and Daniel's anger only makes it worse, until he's leaning against the desk and struggling to wheeze to a stop. 

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he pants, still looking damnably amused. “You poor boy. Alexander does understand at least in part. He is much more a lover of men than of women, but he adores her ladyship.”

“What sort of woman is she,” Daniel asks, “mannish?”

“Only if one considers learning, wit, and courage to be entirely masculine,” Agrippa says, bright eyes looking at Daniel in a way that seems to see everything about him, visible or not. He can't help but squirm a little under that intent gaze.

“I certainly don't,” he says, flushing a little. Hazel was the bravest person Daniel has ever known, and proportionately more educated, considering all the school she had had to miss.

Agrippa smiles, a little sadly. “Yes, because you are a good boy.” He rings the bell. “I want to show you her portrait, but the nearest one is up far too many stairs for me.”

Sure enough, the servant escorts Daniel up to the part of the castle that represents the efforts of some madman to build a mountaintop cathedral and then on to the transept, where Alexander's study is at the top of a spiral staircase that Daniel can't imagine hauling himself up at Agrippa's age.

“Just a little further, sir,” the servant says from behind him. This one is named Gunter and the scarring all over his face and bare scalp is apparently from a combination of being in the wrong place during the felling of a tree, and of an unfriendly encounter with a bear. “His lordship would have more copies of it about, but her ladyship is too modest.”

Daniel pauses, one hand on the railing. “I say, we won't be interrupting him, will we?” By now he has a slightly better idea of what Alexander does all day, and a great deal of it involves paperwork.

“On any other day, sir,” Gunter says, “but they always have a party when her ladyship gets back, and his lordship is busy with that today. Her ladyship stops in Aldstadt to rest, and his lordship goes to join her there while we get things ready, and they arrive with their guests the next day.”

“It will be so strange after how solitary the place always is,” Daniel says, wondering how on earth he'll make himself presentable. “Where has her ladyship been?”

“She has family in foreign parts, sir. His lordship met her in London, but she was born in...” As he struggles to remember, Daniel climbs up and into a little antechamber where a large and exquisite portrait greets his eye on the opposite wall. The woman represented looks a bit over thirty, allowing for those years to be full of good care and feeding. Even reproduced on canvas her eyes are arresting, large and slightly tilted and tinted a brown so clear and so pale as to be nearly yellow, a color like sunlight through tokay. They have thick, dark lashes and brows, and her hair is black, swept up in a plain and elegant way, adorned with a small tiara of golden stones that match her eyes. There's an expression of delicate, feral near-alarm on her face, presumably at being under the painter's gaze. It makes her seem younger than she looks, as does her clear, unlined skin, a soft brown darker than her eyes but with the same golden tone, beautifully set off by a deep pink gown.

“...Bengal, I think the place is called, sir, in India.” Gunter says, catching up to Daniel.

“I see,” Daniel says. “She's very beautiful.” He may feel no real draw to women at all, but he can imagine how the presence of this one might fan even a faint spark into a respectable flame. 

Gunter smiles. “This was taken ten years ago, sir, and her ladyship hardly looks any different now.” The pride and affection in his rumbly voice really is charming, and Daniel looks over and returns his smile.

“She must also be gracious, to inspire such affection.”

“Very much, sir. Her ladyship came down to the kitchen herself to teach Hansel how to lay out the tea tray.”

“How much does he understand?” Daniel asks, and seeing a bit of defensiveness flit across Gunter's face, hastens to add, “He seems like a very good fellow and I wouldn't want to upset or confuse him or anything.”

Gunter nods, relaxing. “I see, sir. He's my own youngest brother, and of course we're all protective of him. There are four of us here, sir, which is why we go by first names.”

“Ah, so it is a family resemblance.”

“Indeed, sir. And Hansel can do just about anything you'll need about the castle, sir, but he never really got the hang of reading or counting, and if a task has more than about four steps he starts to get lost.”

“I see. I'll keep that in mind.”

“The rest of us never got the hang of telling good fruit from bad or real silk from false, though, so we could never do the marketing without him, sir.”

“Well, I'm very glad the baron took you all on,” Daniel says, turning to head down the stairs again, and it's only a slight exaggeration of the truth. For all the times they've made him jump out of his skin, they have kept his fire lit and his linen clean so far, and that's much better than he was doing before.


	9. Chapter 9

With both Agrippa and Alexander in residence, Brennenburg has some excellent laboratories. Daniel can have a whole workbench and suite of tools all to himself, and there are bright lamps so he can count the myriad pieces of the relic without getting the headache that had been threatening last night. They're even stranger viewed so closely, and when he and Agrippa go over them with a magnifying glass they both get a bit dizzy and have to stop.

“It is Johannes who would know about this,” Agrippa says during one of these breaks. He lounges on a divan, hauled into the spartan lab in deference to his aged bones. Daniel is sitting on the unused half of the workbench, his constitution more than equal to the hard wood, even in his current state. He doesn't say anything to encourage Agrippa, knowing that elaboration will be forthcoming. “He is my student, but has far surpassed me. Surely it isn't hubris to be proud of that.”

“I think it means that you are a truly good teacher,” Daniel says, and Agrippa smiles.

“It is nice to think so, anyway.”

“Would Johannes know about this?” Daniel asks, looking over at the fragments and counting sixteen. “Oh God, they've changed again,” he says, and hops down to the floor to find the page they've been using to note the time and the current number of fragments. At least once every two hours the number changes, the process much accelerated from when Daniel was fumbling around by himself in London and putting the variations down to human error.

“I think he is the only man on earth who could begin to know,” Agrippa says, and creaks up to his feet to come verify Daniel's tally of sixteen. He barely has time to before there are suddenly only ten. Daniel's whole mind seems to sort of ripple in his skull, and once they note and verify the count he goes to lie on the divan for a moment while Agrippa starts a letter to his student.

A minute turns into at least an hour, as far as Daniel can tell when he wakes up. The sun is lower but still well above the treetops, and Alexander is here. Even though he has spent the last two days prowling the kitchen to be sure that everything the baroness particularly likes is in stock, ordering anything that isn't, and sending out invitations to what seems like everyone in Prussia, he has apparently spared some time to come here and be fascinated by the relic.

“Awake, Daniel?” he asks without looking, and Daniel feels himself flush again for no damned reason.

“Yes,” he says, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head. “How is it?”

“Quiet. There were forty-seven pieces when I came in and there still are.”

Daniel shivers, pulling his jacket a little more tightly around himself. “Did you note it?”

“Of course, Daniel,” he says, turning and smiling at him, and the fondness of his voice makes Daniel's face even hotter.

“Thank you.” Having his hands on the fabric of his jacket like this reminds him of how shabby it is. Alexander seems to see the thought in his face.

“I haven't forgotten about your clothes, Daniel.” He pauses. “Well, I have, but only for the past day or so.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Alexander, I would hardly complain about not getting an extravagant gift.”

He chuckles. “Hardly extravagant, Daniel. For the banquet you'll have to wear something of mine.”

Something about that idea reaches inside Daniel and twists, but he manages to thank Alexander and to ask about the guest list and other ordinary things, even with the fragments sitting there glimmering at them. Apparently the party will mostly consist of members of the Black Eagle, a secret society begun by some ancestor of Alexander's.

“Mostly the scions of families of indifferent quality, exalted only through money or some timely service to the von Brennenburgs of old, but some of them are worth talking to, and many of the women are charming.” Daniel can't help but wonder again about Alexander's inversion, but says nothing. “There are scholars among them, at least,” Alexander continues, “and very nearly all of them have at least some English.”

“I was a bit surprised to find the servants so fluent,” Daniel says, hoping that his own lessons in Standard German will be of some use.

Alexander smiles. “It was the first language Madhuri and I had in common, and so became the language of our household.”

“Is that her ladyship's Christian name?” Daniel asks.

“Her Hindu one, anyway,” Alexander says, and Daniel blushes, feeling like an idiot. Alexander chuckles and pats his shoulder. “She is a particular devotee of the goddess Kali.”

“I know more about African religions than Indian,” Daniel says, “is Kali the fearsome one with the skull necklace?”

“The very same,” Alexander says, smiling, “but one must be fierce to protect the things that matter.”

_7th of August 1839_

_There is no denying that Alexander puts a lot of faith into what I can only describe as magic. I am a little surprised, but even while Hazel was dying I noticed how strange my fractured relic is, and I seem to have come to the end of the usual sciences. As a novice I do everything in my power to keep up when Alexander and Agrippa get going, even if I barely understand half of Johannes's letters._

_Agrippa and Alexander are true Renaissance men, paralleled only by Da Vinci, I'm sure. There are many rooms on the lower levels that are fitted for specific research and anatomy studies, alchemy, and botany; but the crown of Brennenburg must be the Inner Sanctum, a most hallowed ground indeed. We will begin our more occult researches there._


	10. Chapter 10

The descent to the Inner Sanctum is fascinating, and Daniel can barely care about how childish he must look to a man who has such a thing in his own home. He had been about ten years old at the time of the first demonstration of the ascending room in London. Now he stares out through the doors of this chamber as Alexander names the levels going by, many of them places Daniel has yet to visit. At last their conveyance stops, and Daniel can't help a little noise in his throat at the sight of solid darkness before them.

“It's all right, Daniel,” Alexander says softly, and steps into the darkness to light first a torch on the wall and then a bright lantern, showing just a bit of the outlines of some enormous passageway. The golden light gives Daniel the courage to step out of the ascending room, and his protector smiles at him. “Hold the light for me, would you?” Alexander says, and Daniel recognizes the concession to his terror for what it is. He is nowhere near too proud to accept it, and follows Alexander with the lantern, soothed by the weight of a full oil reservoir and the wide radius of the light. “There will be more room up ahead,” Alexander adds, and leads Daniel out of the vast mouth of the corridor and into the impossible and dizzying beauty of the Chancel. 

He had described the enormous cavern beneath the bedrock up on which the castle was built, and the ancient stone bridges and the strategically placed galvanic lights and phosphorescent fungi that illuminate it, but this isn't the kind of place that can be put into words. Daniel walks close to Alexander as they cross the bridge ahead. He has never been particularly afraid of heights, but the chasm below seems bottomless. The bridge seems terribly narrow as well, and stone more fragile than it ever has before, and these factors combine to make him huddle close to Alexander, his right shoulder and that whole arm against Alexander's back. At least he doesn't seem to mind, calmly telling Daniel more about the pre-Christian history of the site. He wishes he could pay proper attention. He was an archaeologist before the series of catastrophes that brought him there, after all, but he's more than a little lightheaded with the clash of vertigo and the fluttery feeling he already gets when he's close to Alexander.

They pass through the decussation of the four paths and from there into an antechamber with a pedestal just the size and shape to hold the dream-vision of the completed relic that Daniel can barely remember from Algeria. The pieces are in a pouch at his belt, and now they seem to hum against his flank. He goes toward the pedestal without any conscious thought, and comes to himself with his hands resting on each side of the hemispherical basin, the stone cool against his palms.

“Daniel?” Alexander says, stepping close and wrapping Daniel once again in his faint, spices-and-rose scent. Daniel shivers, seized with a sudden and wild urge to turn from the basin and to cling to Alexander. He resists, swallowing hard and forcing himself to let go of the pedestal.

“I... this seems familiar to me, somehow. I feel that it is meant to hold my completed relic, in the form of an orb.”

“If so, you truly have come to the right place.”

Daniel turns to Alexander, with no idea what he's going to say. This turns out to be nothing at all, his throat seeming to close up as Alexander touches his face. His hand is dry and soft, with the worn-smooth texture that comes with age, and he cups Daniel's cheek for a moment before brushing a lock of hair from his face. “Such a beautiful boy,” Alexander says softly, and Daniel trembles. “Come,” he murmurs, hand gently trailing to Daniel's neck and then his shoulder before letting go to take his hand, those long fingers lacing between his own. He pulls Daniel forward and through another narrow tunnel, this one floored with wrought metal in a pattern of spirals and what look like eyes. There is some complex cage of iron around them and the only light is from a scant growth of the fungus and some torches ahead. Daniel presses himself against Alexander's side, and he picks up the pace, carrying them quickly into the light.

This chamber is square, with a locked door ahead and another chamber to each side. In each corner is a fantastical statue of some Hindu deity, and Alexander goes and bows to the one with the head of an elephant, speaking softly to it for a moment.

“Lord Ganesha is the remover of obstacles,” Alexander says, “so I thought to ask his favor for us.”

Daniel blinks, and then turns and bows to the statue as well, noticing a few candies on its base. “Are those offerings?”

“Yes. I try to keep Madhuri's program during her absences. And she put these down here to help me in my work, and they probably have. I try not to be ungrateful.” So saying, he goes to make sure that the offerings at the bases of the others are still fresh. There is of course fierce Kali, who has a bouquet of exotic blooms at her base, and two other female figures, who also have flowers and a few seasonal fruits. Finding everything still fresh and good, Alexander takes Daniel to one of the side chambers and tells him to lay out the pieces of what Daniel now thinks of as the orb on a strange altar. 

Daniel does as he's told and then feels another ripple through his mind and reels a little, suddenly faint. He leans on Alexander, whose dark eyes are bright as he stares at the fragments which are rippling and expanding and resolving themselves into six large chunks of an obvious sphere. Daniel can see the way they fit together now, and feels stupid for not seeing it before. Of course it's six pieces, and they go together just... so. The room is full of glaring blue light now, and Daniel can see flickering visions of alien worlds and unnameable things that feel like very old memories. He just has time to feel the sleek, perfect curve of the complete orb before the blue light blinds him and he crumples to the floor in a dead faint.


	11. Chapter 11

_8th of August 1839_

_I could never be certain until today that I was on the right path. Down in the Inner Sanctum, with a few Hindu statues for witness, I was able to reassemble the orb. I wouldn't be able to believe it if I did not have the proof here with me. I fainted when the pieces joined, and awoke in my own bed, the orb wrapped in a spare pillowcase and tucked in beside me like a doll, or perhaps a child. I feel like a new mother as I hold it in my hands and remember the wonder and terror it has brought me._

_Last night the Inner Sanctum flared with blue fiery light and I could feel the same things I felt in the dark chamber in Algeria. It was like standing in a mad whirlpool of impressions. It was terrifying, but Alexander kept calm and must somehow have calmed the storm._

Daniel still feels weak, and his handwriting straggles across the page, but it's important to him to get this down while the memory is still fresh. Finally done, he leans back into the pillows, hugging the orb to his chest. It isn't actually warm to the touch at all, but there's the idea of warmth, and a sense of almost familial closeness. He sighs, closing his eyes again. He's fairly sure he dreamt of something upsetting, but he can't remember what it was, and now he feels very warm and very safe. He's dozing again when the door opens, but so lightly that the faint noise of the hinges wakes him. It's Gunter, with Alexander right behind him.

“Mr. Tash?”

“Come in,” Daniel mumbles, shifting up along the mattress, wondering who got him out of his clothes and into a nightshirt. 

Alexander sits on the edge of the bed. “How do you feel, Daniel?”

“...Warm. Dozy?” Daniel shrugs, still cradling the orb. “What happened?”

“This orb has chosen you,” Alexander says, “and you're not used to channeling its energies yet. You collapsed, and I was very glad to find you unharmed.” His next words are directed to the stone itself. “Are you still angry, gracious jewel?” Daniel yelps as the orb flashes dull red for just a moment, nearly dropping it into his lap. Alexander sighs. “You have my word that I will never again touch you without your permission, but the castle was shaking and I was frightened for Daniel.”

“Alexander, what in the nine hells is going on?” Daniel squeaks, clutching at the orb.

He sighs, running a hand through his white hair. “Ugh. I wish Agrippa wasn't napping, but of course he is. Johannes knows the most about this and is probably only now getting the letter telling him to come here, but I will do my best to explain. You may go, Gunter,” he adds with a wave of the same hand, “this is well above your pay grade.”

“Indeed, my lord,” Gunter says, and withdraws with a bow.

Apparently the stone is an item of incredible power, often sought and seldom held. Daniel can scarcely credit the feats Alexander attributes to the bearers of these Orbs, let alone that there are others in the world.

“The Orb has worked its way into the iconography of almost every culture,” Alexander says, shifting to rest his back against the headboard of the bed, one black boot propped on the opposite knee, “and the things have a very strong will of their own. You have been singularly honored, Daniel.”

“I have?” he asks, glad that his voice doesn't crack or quake.

“Indeed,” Alexander says, going on to explain the various guises in which the Orbs have presented themselves. Daniel closes his eyes and listens to Alexander's deep, slow purr of a voice, the heavy stone warm over his heart.

“Consider it a cosmic egg, perhaps,” Alexander concludes. Daniel opens his eyes again, trying not to blush, losing the battle when Alexander smiles down at him. “For now and in general the safest thing is for you to keep it, and keep it covered.”

Daniel nods, gazing at the Orb again. “I'd say I can't believe this, but now I know how I survived the collapse in Algeria.”

“Precisely,” Alexander says, and tucks an errant lock of hair behind Daniel's ear. The incidental contact makes him shiver, and he hopes that Alexander doesn't notice.

“What time is it?” They're far enough north for an early autumn day to still be quite long. The faint light from the window is a confusing color and intensity, anything from twilight to dawn to thunderous and accordingly dark noon.

“Just after four o'clock on the morning of the eighth,” Alexander says. “Don't worry, you haven't missed much.”

Daniel chuckles. “Well, then. Thank you. And you, dear,” he adds to the Orb, his eyes widening as it glows blue for a moment. He looks up to see Alexander smiling fondly at him. “So, what now?”

“The Orb will remain calm now that it is in its proper shape as well as in the possession of its chosen bearer, so I was going to continue on as planned. I can of course tell the guests that you are ill, if you don't want to attend.”

“I... I don't think there's any need for that,” Daniel says, a little surprised to find himself feeling quite well.

“I have not actually forgotten about ordering clothes for you, but you'll have to accept my apologies and the loan of some of my things, I'm afraid.”

Daniel laughs. It feels unreal to be talking about clothes, and Alexander has already done so much for him. “I'm sure I'll bear up under the strain, Alexander.”


	12. Chapter 12

_9th of August 1839_

_It is still early and Alexander is busy preparing for the banquet later today. Apparently the Orb will give no trouble now that it is whole and in my care, making it safe to go ahead with his plans. I can't help being a little nervous, but so far the Orb is acting like an ordinary stone, calm and still and cool to the touch. I realize now that we have but grazed the Orb's true potential. This might be the beginning of something truly extraordinary._

_Despite the seriousness of my situation, seeing Alexander this worked up makes me smile. He seems much younger than his years, and his excitement for the Baroness's return after what must be a twenty-year marriage is deeply touching. If a little confusing for me, in light of our earlier conversation._

Daniel takes such a late breakfast that Hansel has to measure him immediately afterward, in a brief moment away from supervising the temporary help from the village. Gunter comes with him to make sure the numbers get noted correctly, and Daniel stays as still as possible, feeling dimly guilty that they must spare the time at all. Still, it isn't much time. Hansel's neatness and precision make him very good at this, and soon he's beaming at Daniel and standing up. Daniel thanks them both for their service and spends what little is left of the morning and a good portion of the afternoon just staying out of the way, studying the Orb and reading Austen during his breaks. It's only when Alexander invites him to the sitting room where they first met to have a late lunch that Daniel remembers that he's not even usually here at this point, that it is his habit to meet her ladyship the night before and to return with her for the banquet.

“I'm sorry to have kept you from your wife,” Daniel says, taking his place at the little table, and Alexander smiles.

“I should have known that something extraordinary was going to happen and perhaps delayed a day. As it stands, I sent Wilhelm with my apologies and to escort her back. They should be here within the hour, actually. Long as I have been parted from my beloved, I can stand this much more.”

Daniel blushes. “I still don't understand,” he says, barely daring to glance up from his plate at Alexander, who turns out to be smiling.

“She and I are both inverted, but we find each other congenial.”

“...I didn't know women could be inverted,” Daniel admits, and Alexander laughs so long that it makes him cough.

“My poor, darling boy,” he says when he catches his breath at last. “Acquaintance with her will be good for you.”

“Perhaps,” Daniel mutters, too embarrassed to be more polite. Alexander chuckles and stands, coming around to rest one spidery hand on Daniel's shoulder.

“Please, pardon me,” he says, still amused, but gentler now. “I forget how young you really are.”

“Of course I forgive you, Alexander,” Daniel says, rolling his eyes and standing up so that Hansel can clear the dishes away and Alexander can lead Daniel into his dressing room. There are very dark velvet hangings on the walls, and the same general sorts of furnishings as are in Daniels' room. Alexander opens one of two wardrobes, and smiles at Daniel.

“Do you have any preference about colors? We are not so formal here as we could be.”

Daniel can barely wrap his mind around the idea of something so normal as a banquet (and it says something that a banquet at a baron's castle in Prussia now seems 'normal') and so admits to no preference at all. There's a happy gleam in Alexander's eyes at that, and Daniel doesn't understand until he has tried on the third possible shirt and finally puts together the way Alexander's dark eyes meet his in the mirror and the lingering way that he touches him. Their gazes lock again and Daniel shudders.

“You won't be thin enough to fit these for long,” Alexander says softly, his hands on Daniel's shoulders. “You're getting your strength back.”

Daniel watches his reflection go bright red. “Thanks to your care,” he says softly, and Alexander chuckles, one elegant hand sliding down Daniel's arm to adjust the sleeve garter. The contact makes him shiver, and after the rush of terror comes the relief. Alexander knows what he is. Discovery should hold no terrors, since it has already happened, but Daniel's heart is still pounding when the garter is tightened and Alexander's hand is on his shoulder again. The silence stretches out as they both examine his reflection, and then Alexander's hands are on the sensitive sides of Daniel's neck, and he can't help tipping his chin up just a little and making some tiny noise that almost dies in his throat.

“Such lovely skin,” Alexander purrs, the tips of his forefingers just barely stroking it. “So pale, and so clear... may I kiss it, Daniel?”

Daniel makes the same thwarted little sound again and then whispers, “Yes.” He bites his lip and stares into the mirror as Alexander lowers his head, a sweep of silver-white hair obscuring his features as he presses cool, dry lips to the side of Daniel's neck. His breath is hot, and Daniel shudders at each touch of his mouth, leaning back into his arms as his knees start to go weak and his reflection flushes, the pupils of his eyes pooling wide. He doesn't put his full weight on Alexander's lean, aged frame, but the man has to take some of it if he's going to insist on mouthing Daniel's neck, a tender pantomime of devouring him that feels so good that Daniel wonders if Alexander can taste the pleasure in his rapid pulse. He probably can, because he bites, low on Daniel's neck where his collar will hide it and he whines, his eyes falling shut. Alexander murmurs something in a language Daniel can't place, and then curses in German, stepping back and tugging the tails of the shirt out of Daniel's trousers to hide the erection even those slight attentions have given him.

“Her ladyship has returned, my lord,” Gunter says, and Daniel can see the way Alexander's eyes light up in the mirror.

“Tell her that I shall be with her in a moment,” Alexander says, and when Gunter closes the door again, he kisses Daniel's cheek. “Should I lend you a hand with the predicament into which I have placed you?”

Daniel blushes and shakes his head. “Go to the baroness, please. You already didn't meet her in Aldstadt because of me.”

“Because of my own ill-judged timing,” he says, “but thank you. We will talk about this later, darling boy,” he says, and kisses Daniel again before leaving the room.


	13. Chapter 13

Daniel locks the door and kneels by the fire, still wearing Alexander's shirt. He doesn't have the patience to remove it, and while it's perfectly clean, it smells like his personal blend of roses and spice and Daniel moans softly at being enveloped in that scent while he strokes himself into his handkerchief, imagining his hand as one of Alexander's. In reality he would probably tease Daniel, draw it out and whisper into his ear until he was begging and writhing, but now is not the time for that kind of thing. He keeps his strokes quick and hard, and can't help a tiny, almost inaudible cry when he comes. He freezes in terror, but of course no one has heard him with these thick walls. He carefully twists up the handkerchief so that it won't soil his trouser pocket, in the dolorous knowledge that now he only has two clean ones left, and that's only because the staff is so good about the laundry.

Daniel has just barely caught his breath and gotten his own shirt on again when another of the servants appears to summon him to her ladyship's sitting room. He scrambles to get his jacket back on and to get his shaggy hair out of his face before following the man (Wilhelm, if Daniel remembers properly) through the corridors to his destination. Even with the household's general informality and everything Alexander has said about his unconventional marriage, Daniel is nervous and guilty and hoping it doesn't show too much on his face when Wilhelm opens the door and announces his presence before leaving them alone.

The room makes Daniel think of a jewelry box, red velvet glowing in the late afternoon sun. Her ladyship is seated on a divan with Alexander, dressed in a neat, plain costume of dark blue, suited for travel. She's darker than her portrait, and age has made her thinner and put white streaks into her gleaming black hair, but her eyes are the same tokay gold, and the crows-feet at their corners just make them seem friendlier.

“This is Daniel Tash,” Alexander tells her. “Daniel, Lady Brennenburg.”

“Madhuri to my friends, of which I hope you will be one,” she says, and her voice is deep and simultaneously very soft. An incredibly soothing voice, it helps Daniel's nerves. He straightens from his bow and smiles at her.

“I should be honored, Madhuri.”

She smiles back. “Come, sit on the other side of Alexander and have some tea.”

Daniel blushes, and does as directed. There is just room for three adults, and Daniel feels a childish urge to hide his face in Alexander's shoulder. As Madhuri pours a cup of tea for Daniel, Alexander puts his arm around him, guiding his head to rest on his shoulder. Daniel whimpers, feeling himself flush out to the tips of his ears as he hides his face.

“I have been a terrible brute to this poor boy, Madhuri,” Alexander says, and she sighs.

“And what have you done, you wicked man? And does your victim take milk or sugar?”

“Both,” Alexander says, fingertips gently rubbing Daniel's scalp. “And I got the poor boy all worked up and then abandoned him to come to you.”

“I told you to,” Daniel points out, barely audible.

“Yes, because you're so polite,” Alexander says.

Daniel peeks out with one eye to see Alexander offering him a cup of milky tea, and he sits up and takes it, absorbing himself in sipping it carefully, because it's very hot. “She is your wife, Alexander, it's only right.”

“That's very sweet of you, dear,” Madhuri says, and sips her own tea, leaning against Alexander's other side. “I do appreciate not having to wait that extra minute to see him, but I can assure you that I have no monopoly on his time. Nor he on mine.”

“I see,” Daniel says, and it's strange, because he is at once shocked that Madhuri feels the same about their domestic arrangements as Alexander does, and completely unsurprised. Alexander clearly worships her, and would do nothing to shame her or cause her pain. He kisses her cheek now, and she smiles.

“What pretext was he using to put his hands all over you?”

“To be perfectly fair,” Daniel says, “I do need to borrow some evening clothes from Alexander, so seeing which ones suited me was a necessary task.”

Madhuri laughs. “Well played, husband.”

It is so far beyond bizarre to drink tea with the woman whose husband was just doing unnatural things to him that Daniel finds himself perfectly calm, the way he still sometimes is in dreams. Madhuri recounts some of her travels and asks after her own small concerns, such as some orchids left in Alexander's care, and then turns the conversation back to Daniel's clothes. Tea finished, she leads them back to Alexander's dressing room with what must be genuine lightheartedness, and chooses Daniel's ensemble for the evening before returning to her own room to rest before the banquet. Daniel does the same, needing a safe place to recover from all the disclosures of the day. He puts his borrowed clothes into the wardrobe and then stretches out on top of the bed, hugging the orb to his chest.

“Do you know anything about this sort of thing?” Daniel asks it softly, and startles to see it glow soft blue. “You do then?” He murmurs, and the orb flickers blue. “Funny stone,” he coos, suddenly very tired and full of affection for his bizarre relic. He continues to talk to the Orb as he dozes off, and the soft, blue glow follows him into his dreams. There is no shape, no story, and no pursuing shadows, just a shoreless sea of calm blue light.


	14. Chapter 14

Daniel wakes up to Hansel gently shaking him. He's apparently here to valet Daniel for the banquet. Daniel has never had a personal manservant, but has to admit that Hansel does a much better job at adjusting the sleeve garters and tying the cravat correctly than Daniel ever has.

Dressed in the baron's clothes, Daniel looks a bit old-fashioned, but well enough. The jacket is velvet, in a rich, midnight blue that makes Daniel look very pale and makes his eyes seem bright blue instead of their ordinary greyish color. Alexander's third-best boots are too big, but a little crumpled paper keeps his feet from rattling in them, and Hansel has buffed the black leather to a high gloss. The local mode is to dress as if one might need to ride a horse at any moment, and Daniel smooths the fabric of his borrowed breeches. They wrinkle in slightly strange ways, meant for longer and leaner thighs, but they're quiet, unadorned black and hopefully no one will notice.

Hansel beams when Daniel thanks him for his help. “You're welcome, sir. I hope you enjoy the evening.”

Daniel is resolved to do his best, even if the night yawns before him, full of Continental nobility and the utter certainty that he'll put his foot in it somehow. He can only hope his inevitable errors will be recoverable. It's a comfort when Agrippa comes to collect him, looking surprisingly handsome and leaning on an elegant cane with a silver top instead of his usual one, which has hardly been altered from the gnarled branch it began as. Gunter is right behind him, huge and silent.

“Ready, Daniel?” Agrippa asks.

“I suppose I'm as close to ready as I'm going to get,” Daniel says, taking a moment to make sure that the Orb is quiet where he has tucked it into his bed. He feels more like a mother than ever, and Agrippa smiles.

“Don't worry, we won't be leaving the baby alone.”

Gunter is staying here to guard the Orb, and Daniel feels a bit guilty about monopolizing him but also deeply relieved. When he says so, Gunter just laughs. “I'm glad to stay here, sir. I don't really enjoy evening engagements.”

“I'm not sure I do, either, Gunter,” Daniel says, and Agrippa laughs, taking his arm and directing their steps to Madhuri's sitting room.

Unsurprisingly, Alexander and Madhuri look magnificent. They're side by side on the sofa, Madhuri a cloud of silvery silk, and Alexander resplendent in the kind of scarlet that shouldn't seem so right on a man of his age. He rises, smiling at Daniel, who smiles back, feeling excruciatingly shy.

“You look very well tonight, Daniel,” he says, the corners of his mouth barely tipped up into one of his secretive smiles. Daniel does his best not to blush, and can feel his face warming as he fails utterly because Alexander takes his hand and kisses it, just as if he were a lady. He can hear Agrippa chuckling at them, but it fades into the background because Alexander's lips warm and dry and make Daniel remember every other caress Alexander has given him. He trembles, and Madhuri laughs, but not unkindly.

“Come and sit beside me,” she says, patting the cushion to her right. Alexander releases Daniel, and he settles there, feeling almost too shy to look at Madhuri. “You are a remarkably beautiful boy,” she says softly, studying him with those warm, golden eyes.

“Th-thank you, ma'am,” he whispers, and she chuckles as the others sit down on the left side.

“You poor, shy darling,” she says. “I should like to kiss you, but only if you also like the idea.”

“I... I do,” he hears himself saying, and wonders if he has gone mad. He doesn't flee as Madhuri leans in, though, and her lips are like rose petals on his cheek. Her scent is like musk and like spices and some flower Daniel has never seen, and he closes his eyes for a moment, opening them as she pulls away and smiles at him again.

“Now, my dear child,” she says, rising in a rustle of silk as Daniel does the same, far too well-bred and not nearly frail enough to sit when a lady stands, “to the banquet.” Madhuri takes Alexander's arm and Agrippa takes Daniel's, the two of them following their hosts to the main hall, where the first arrivals are already filtering in, a blaze of silks and furs and the kind of colors that are just too much for Britain.

The next hour or so is a blur for Daniel. He is introduced to nobility, gentry, and members of the Black Eagle and their wives. A few husbands as well, since membership is open to ladies. Everyone is gracious to him, but there's a calculating look in some of their eyes that makes him a little nervous, and he finds himself staying as close as he can to Alexander as the room fills with people sipping wine and speaking quick and non-standard German. Daniel says little and sips the cup of excellent red wine Alexander gives him, trying to at least learn faces if names are impossible. 

At last, Alexander gets locked into a long discussion of business with a friend who has no English, Daniel finds Agrippa again, seated off to the side. He's speaking to a girl of about thirteen, who holds herself with the exaggerated poise of a child trying to be as grown up as possible.

“Ah, there you are, my friend,” Agrippa says. “This is Elise Zimmerman, a neighbor of ours.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” he says, and bows to the girl as Agrippa translates. He takes the empty seat on her other side, and before long Daniel isn't nervous at all, sharing bonbons with their new friend as Arippa comments on the action in two languages, translating their questions and remarks to one another as he teaches them all about the elaborate network of friendships, family connections, and rivalries before them.


	15. Chapter 15

It's a relief to Daniel when the table is laid and everyone can go in to eat. Food is a universal constant, and Daniel's nice table manners are yet another thing his father hates about him, so he feels equal to the vast array of golden cutlery before him. He can even wield it in the Continental way, matching the rest of the table. He's seated next to his little friend Elise, and Agrippa is on her other side, explaining the various Indian dishes and influences on the table.

Daniel has had curry before, but it was hardly anything like the delicious stews on offer here. Everything is very fiery, but not nearly enough to deter him. There are of course also regional dishes, and things known throughout Europe, but Daniel is most curious about the Indian foods. Agrippa, having lived with Madhuri for some time, is able to identify them to Daniel, and to explain which ingredients have been substituted due to lack of availability, or altered to taste. He explains it all to Elise, as well, and she daintily tastes everything before her like a kitten. 

She reminds Daniel more than a little of Hazel, and he does his best to help Agrippa entertain her, up to and including taking her as his partner when the dancing starts. They're actually well-matched, since Daniel isn't much of a dancer and Elise has just started to learn. Their conversation is limited to smiling at each other's mistakes as they try to figure out how to turn properly in their little section to the side of the floor.

Alexander and Madhuri are of course a lesson in grace to the whole room. During a break for more bonbons and wine (thinned with water and honey for Elise,) Daniel watches them. The way they fit together is remarkable in its ease, and Madhuri's feet hardly seem to touch the ground as she floats in Alexander's arms. He looks away when his glass is empty, casting about a for a servant to give it to. He has already seen Hansel several times tonight, gliding elegantly around and then ruining the effect completely by beaming at people when they thank him. Right now he's on the opposite side of the room, though, and Daniel is instead rescued by a pretty little maid who he knows isn't part of the household staff. She chirps German acknowledgment of his thanks, and he's conversant enough to make a reasonably polite request for another glass.

By the time Elise is yawning and must be returned to her mother, the ball is winding down. Many of the guests will be stopping overnight, with some of their various domestics and a few of the temporary help. Daniel catches sight of a whole little procession of other servants walking quickly into the night. A young girl looks longingly back, and her mother grabs her by the arm and marches her onward. Daniel has to wonder what that's about, but he's drunk enough and sleepy enough to be more concerned with following Alexander out of the room when he beckons.

Daniel's room is closer than either of his hosts's bedrooms, and Alexander quietly closes the door behind them, smiling down at Daniel as he wraps those long arms around his waist. The room is dim, but bright enough for Daniel, between the bedroom fire and a few candles. He trembles when Alexander kisses him, just a soft brush of dry lips on his own.

“There are more festivities in store for Madhuri and I,” he says, “but you should rest.”

Daniel nods, but neither of them lets go. Alexander chuckles, rubbing Daniel's back as he leans in for another kiss. This one lingers more, and Daniel whimpers, opening for him. He remembers guilty caresses at school, and more from when he was far too old for schoolboy games. So many of them had come to him with the help of drink, and he melts against Alexander, warm enough with wine to forget his own misgivings. He moans when Alexander's tongue slides into his mouth, and whines at the masterful way it explores him. He feels a sudden hunger for Alexander, wishing it was his prick in his mouth instead of his tongue, and he whimpers in a mixture of arousal and terror.

“Sweet boy,” Alexander purrs, pulling away just far enough to speak. “Let me put you to bed. We can talk tomorrow.”

Even under the influence, Daniel is very embarrassed to find Gunter still sitting in the bedroom, but he greets them as if this is all completely normal, and takes his leave after assuring Daniel that the Orb gave him no trouble. Daniel hides his still-hot face in Alexander's neck for a long moment, finally kissing the dry skin and pulling away. Alexander helps Daniel out of the borrowed clothes, and guides him under the covers, tucking the Orb into his arms and cradling his head to feed him a bit of the pink tonic. 

“Not too much,” he croons, “when you're already so drowsy with wine.” After Daniel swallows the dose, Alexander kisses him again. “Such a sweet taste,” he murmurs, and Daniel smiles. “Rest, and we'll talk in the morning,” he says softly, and gives Daniel a few more slow, lazy kisses, his white hair falling around their faces like a curtain, glowing in the light of the candles.

Daniel is dozing when Alexander leaves, but comes fully awake what feels like a long time later, scrambling to light the candle beside the bed. It sits in a bowl of water for safety, and Daniel nearly spills it before he gets it lit. He shudders, waiting for his pounding heart to slow. It must be nearly dawn, and he tucks the orb into bed, murmuring to it that he'll be back soon. He lights the lantern, and braves the darkness to make his cautious way to the toilet. Having gone that far, and with his nightshirt respectably covered by a dressing down in the event of wandering ladies, Daniel goes in search of Alexander, who often sits up very late.


	16. Chapter 16

Naturally, Daniel loses his way. He should have known better than to trust himself to navigate these dark corridors with only a lantern, and he is already on the verge of panic when he hears a scream of agony reverberating up from the staircase before him. In the grip of panic and the dimly-formed idea of going to the sufferer's aid, Daniel plunges down the stairs, following another desperate shriek. It's like a nightmare, and he seems to run forever before stumbling and falling into a large, stone room that rings with another helpless, tortured cry. The lantern shatters and Daniel lets out a shriek of his own. There are dim torches here, though, so he is not left in blackness. Looking up at a ring of curious and concerned faces, he almost wishes that he were.

“Are you all right?” asks a lady who was one of his primary English conversationalists during the party.

“I-I believe so, ma'am,” he says, scrambling onto his knees and making sure that his dressing gown is still closed. As he does so, he realizes that no one present is any closer to being fully dressed than he is, and blushes.

“Daniel?” Alexander asks, and he has never been so glad to hear that deep, calm voice. People move aside for him, and a moment later he's crouching beside Daniel, stroking his hair. “Did you have another nightmare, darling?”

Daniel's face gets even hotter at the endearment. “No. I was just wakeful. But those screams... Alexander, what is happening here?”

“Something I did not want to explain so soon,” he says, taking Daniel's hand, “but come.” 

Daniel gets up, still trembling, and one of the ladies puts a blanket around his shoulder. He thanks her politely in English that she clearly only understands the tone of, and then lets Alexander lead him to a small alcove, well-lit by torches. There's a bed made up on some kind of stone block. Madhuri is seated there, legs neatly pulled up under her. She glows in the red-gold light, wearing only a shift. That alone makes Daniel blush, to say nothing of the naked couple curled up before her, the lady's head resting in Madhuri's lap as she pants and whimpers, long blonde hair tumbled everywhere. She's covered in small, bleeding cuts, and her companion is in much the same condition, his hand buried between her legs. Madhuri strokes her hair with one hand, the other holding a small, elegant knife that Daniel can tell is scalpel sharp, blood glimmering on the edge of the blade.

“I... Madhuri, what is this?”

“The intersection of pleasure and pain, my dear. We and our guests enjoy it very much.”

“We were afraid it would shock you, Daniel,” Alexander adds, and then speaks in a German dialect that Daniel doesn't know. She raises her head and gazes at Daniel with a pair of limpid blue eyes so blissful that she seems almost drunk.

“I am very comfortable, Mr. Tash,” she says, her accent so thick that Daniel can barely understand her. “Sorry to frighten you.”

“Qu-quite all right, ma'am, I assure you,” Daniel says, feeling a little faint. He has never felt any real desire for women, but the contrast between the bleeding cuts and the smoothness of her skin fascinates him. He shudders, terrified of his own impulses as ever, and Alexander puts his arms around him, drawing Daniel back to his chest.

“Shall I escort you back to bed?” he murmurs, and Daniel shudders all over at the heat of Alexander's breath on his ear as Madhuri lowers the knife again. 

She makes a delicate cut just as the man pushes into her in some way that makes her wail again. Daniel trembles, some small noise caught in his own throat. Madhuri clucks and coos to her victim, talking German that Daniel can't understand to her, and making so many of those little cuts. At last the woman screams again, loud enough to rattle the windows if this room had any, bucking and thrashing on her companion's hand and Madhuri's lap. She strokes her hair and speaks gently to her as she whines and the man pulls back his entire hand, slick to the wrist. The little visiting maid Daniel saw earlier crawls in with them, kissing the man's cuts tenderly as Madhuri does the same with the woman. Daniel can feel the pounding of his pulse all over his body, and he can smell the blood, the crowd pressing close around the bed. He's still terrified, but now he can't even be sure of what. 

Alexander hugs him tightly, and murmurs into his ear, “See, Daniel? It's all right. Everyone is all right.” He switches into German to delegate people to sweep up the lantern glass as he takes Daniel's arm and picks up a silver candelabra with the other hand.

“Come, my dear,” he says to Daniel, and leads him from the room as Madhuri continues to comfort her victim. In the dark corridors and with no one to witness it, Daniel lets himself whimper and hide his face in Alexander's shoulder as they walk, clinging to his arm. “I won't let any harm come to you, Daniel,” he murmurs, and Daniel relaxes a little but doesn't raise his head until they come to a stop beside that strange fountain, where the moonlight is pouring in through the windows. After a moment for Daniel to recover himself, Alexander walks him up to his room, where the Orb is still slumbering peacefully in his bed. Daniel crawls in beside it, and watches as Alexander pulls the bell rope.

“I hate to wake anyone at this hour,” Daniel says, and Alexander smiles.

“A man must attend his own party,” Alexander says, “but I do not want you alone. And to be fair, answering ill-timed summons is part of the job description.

Sure enough, Gunter looks tired when he bangs through the door like the crack of doom, but otherwise correct. Alexander tells him to bring Agrippa to join Daniel, which makes him object that Agrippa is old and needs his rest.

“This is true,” Alexander says, “but the old are wakeful.”


	17. Chapter 17

Gunter returns, pushing a bath chair with Agrippa in it, wrapped to the eyes and apparently wide awake. “Daniel, my boy,” he says, “I'm sorry to hear that you can't sleep.”

“I'm sorry to bother you,” Daniel says, “but I'm very glad to see you.”

“No trouble, child,” Agrippa says, and accepts Alexander's hand, getting to his feet and slowly unwrapping himself, revealing his spare frame in a long nightshirt. Alexander helps him to climb into bed beside Daniel, and smiles down at them. Agrippa's strange scent of medicinal spice is comforting, and Daniel cuddles close to him, too shy to put an arm around him until Agrippa takes him by the wrist and pulls his arm into place. 

Alexander chuckles as Gunter lights a fresh candle. “Comfortable?”

Daniel can feel himself blushing. “Yes. Thank you, Gunter,” he adds, and Gunter nods, retiring to stand by the door.

“Good,” Alexander says. He leans down and across Agrippa to kiss Daniel, making him sigh and melt against Agrippa, who's surprisingly solid and almost feverishly warm. He pulls away and looks into Daniel's eyes for a long moment before kissing Agrippa's forehead.

“Agrippa will answer any questions you may have about the festivities. Won't you, old friend?”

Agrippa chuckles. “Of course I will. Be off with you, I know you've missed the Baroness.”

“That I cannot deny,” Alexander says, and thanks Gunter, who bows and then follows him out. 

Daniel sighs, tired but far from sleep. “Are you awake enough for that explanation, Agrippa?”

He chuckles. “Any time. Now, what were they up to when you stumbled onto them?”

Daniel shivers, holding him a little more tightly. “I heard a woman screaming,” he says.

“Ah.” Agrippa pats his hand. “And you followed the sound?”

Daniel nods. “She... Madhuri was cutting her. The others were watching.” 

He goes on to describe the scene, squirming as the words leave his mouth. Agrippa listens very patiently, helping a few times to find the right words. Daniel hasn't even heard the word 'quim' since he was in school, so he's grateful for the assistance.

"I see," Agrippa says at last. "Well, you remember what I said before, about both of them being more inverted than otherwise."

"I do."

"Well, they also have a wide acquaintance and never vowed to forsake all others. Very fortunate for you, Daniel," he adds, and Daniel can feel himself blushing again. He squirms a little, and Agrippa snuggles into his chest, sighing softly. "Mmm. You're delightfully warm, you know that?"

"I'm just glad you're comfortable," Daniel says softly, and Agrippa chuckles.

"How could I be otherwise, with a sweet boy's strong arm around me?"

"You're incorrigible," Daniel tells him, and sighs, resting his lips against Agrippa's bald pate. "I'm very glad to know you."

"Likewise, dear boy. Is our jewel comfortable?"

The Orb is resting on Daniel's other side, smooth and warm. "It's very comfortable," Daniel says, and he can feel his mind wobble a little, the way it does whenever he stops to realize how completely bizarre his life has gotten. "My God, Agrippa..."

"I know," he murmurs, wrapping a sticklike arm over Daniel. "I may be old, but I remember when I was young, and things were strange."

"I think it might help me to write down the night's events. Sorry, I need to sit up."

"I am willing to make sacrifices for your peace of mind, Daniel," Agrippa says, and lets Daniel up, nestling down into the pillows. Daniel smiles down at him and tucks the blanket in more securely before taking his journal from the nightstand.

_9th of August 1839_

_I am very glad to have Agrippa sharing my bed tonight, for I am still a little shaky. The banquet was like others of its kind, but Alexander gave me no warning of what would happen afterward. Apparently the Order of the Black Eagle is a more intimate brotherhood than I realized. Alexander has mentioned that he and his lady had never promised to forsake all others, but I was not expecting to see it so widely applied. Or with such strange violence. The victim seemed happy enough, but it was still frightening to see the blood, and all the others gathered around while Madhuri cut her, like some heathen rite. Perhaps I should not say so, since the baroness is apparently still a good Hindoo. She and Alexander were very good about reassuring me, and I almost think Alexander would have stayed with me himself, if I had asked. I prefer him to see his wife, though. She is a very gracious lady, and has been away a long time._

"Finished?" Agrippa murmurs, as Daniel closes the book.

"I am," he says, and replaces it on the nightstand, lying down beside Agrippa again, sighing at his warmth and of the comfort of someone so close in the candlelight.

"My dear boy," Agrippa says, and kisses the top of Daniel's head, putting a spindly arm around him again. "Were I thirty years younger and you not enamored of Alexander, I would certainly give him a great deal of trouble."

Daniel can feel himself blushing, and hides his face against Agrippa's bony chest, adorned with liver spots and a few white hairs. "I do like you a great deal," he says, "for all you are so old."

"I like to think that I've retained some of my charm."

"Do... do you think Alexander feels the same about me?" Daniel mutters.

"I am certain of it," Agrippa tells him, stroking his hair. "He would have sheltered any young person in your situation, but you are almost enough to distract him from Madhuri, and that is no small thing." He's silent for a moment, and then chuckles. "Daniel, did you know that your blush continues to the back of your neck?"

"Yes," he says, and shivers as Agrippa gently cups the flushed skin in one hand, remaining like that as he tells Daniel more about how utterly adorable he is, talking them both to sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

When Daniel wakes up, he does so in the dawning awareness that his sleep has been dreamless. Somehow he and Agrippa have shifted in the night, and Agrippa is cuddled close to his chest, his bald pate making Daniel think of an egg. He chuckles, and presses a kiss to it in a sudden fit of tenderness for Agrippa's many years. He can feel the quiet, heavy warmth of the Orb against his back, like a friendly cat, and he sighs happily.

"No nightmares, Daniel?" Alexander purrs, and Daniel flinches in surprise, laughing and looking around to see his host comfortably settled in the armchair beside the bed.

"And how long have you been there, your lordship?"

"Not long, darling, not long," Alexander says, looking deeply amused, something softer sparkling in his eyes. "You do make a lovely picture, though, sleep-warmed and cradling Agrippa."

"It was the other way around when I fell asleep, I assure you," Daniel says, and smiles down at his ancient friend. "Poor old dear didn't complain one bit."

"I wish we had been more methodical," Alexander says. "We must learn if a companion keeps your nightmares away, if skin-to-skin contact is needed, or if last night was a matter of chance."

"I suppose so," Daniel says, pondering it in that light. "I know that having someone in the room with me is no help, but I hadn't thought of trying shunamitism."

"Hardly, Daniel. You have much more youthful heat to offer Agrippa."

"Indeed he does," Agrippa says, not opening his eyes. "Right against my hip, there's a place that's very, very warm."

"Agrippa!" Daniel yelps, and Alexander laughs.

"Come up out of that bed, you old goat, Madhuri wants to feed you breakfast."

"And you want to get some shunamitism done, I understand," he says, getting out of bed and putting his dressing gown on over his nightshirt and then depositing himself grandly in his bath chair. "I am a pitiful old man, however, and someone must bear witness to your debauchery so that they may convey me to your lovely wife."

"As if servants don't always know everything," Alexander says, and leans over the bed to pull the bell rope. 

Daniel blushes when Gunter arrives, but he is very correct, and say nothing but a pleasant good morning to each of them as he gathers Agrippa up. Alexander himself stands and pushes the bath chair into position, smiling down at his old friend as Gunter makes him comfortable.

"Give Madhuri our fondest regards," he says, and Agrippa laughs, promising to do so.

"We may even save you some food," he says, and flutters his fingers in a casual farewell as Gunter wheels him out of the room. Alexander chuckles, and shuts the door.

"You realize," he says, turning back to Daniel, "that you needn't do anything you don't want, for all our talk."

Daniel can feel himself blushing more deeply than ever, sitting up in bed with the Orb in his arms. "I do," he says, and watches as Alexander comes closer and sits on the edge of the bed. He's fully dressed, and his scarlet jacket makes Daniel feels like his own nightshirt might as well not exist, just one thin layer between his fragile skin and the world.

"Good," Alexander says, putting one long arm around Daniel's shoulders and leaning in kiss his neck. Daniel trembles, and the Orb flares red, looking very irritable. Alexander blinks down at it, and Daniel glares at the stone.

"I know you didn't like it when Alexander had to wield you, but you were shaking the castle and had already made me faint! You can't behave like that and expect no one to do anything about it, and you know it.." The stone flickers a conciliatory sort of blue-green, and Daniel sighs, stroking its smooth surface. "Thank you, dear. It's all right, but just try to get along with Alexander, wont you?" The Orb glows a soft blue for a moment, and Daniel smiles, carefully setting it to one side. Once he's sure it's resting comfortably and is in no danger of rolling off, he can finally turn his attention back to Alexander, who looks deeply amused.

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen Weyer chide an Orb. I'm not sure he'd dare."

"I only spoke the truth," Daniel says, and Alexander laughs.

"My darling boy," he murmurs, and nuzzles Daniel's neck again, tugging the open collar of his nightshirt to one side and covering his skin with papery kisses from his jaw to his clavicle. 

All Daniel can think to do is clutch at Alexander's jacket and keep breathing. His usual morning erection is so hard that it aches now, the thin fabric of his nightshirt barely veiling it. Alexander shifts to straddle him, one lean thigh just brushing Daniel's tip and making him cry out softly, unable to help himself.

"Beautiful," Alexander murmurs, kneeling over Daniel and cupping his face in his hands. 

Daniel gazes up at him, his eyes fluttering shut as Alexander finally kisses him on the mouth. He can't help the little whimpering sounds he makes, and Alexander swallows them all up, his own deep, purring sounds only making Daniel feel more helpless and melted. When Alexander pulls his hair, Daniel lets out a sharp, keening noise, and Alexander shudders, doing it again and then again to pull Daniel's head off to the side so that he can bite the crook of his neck. Daniel whines, panting harshly as Alexander bites him a few more times before guiding Daniel's hips down the mattress, letting him lie back on the pillows again and then ranging over him, eyes filled with so much tender greed that Daniel can feel himself flushing all over.

"May I?" Alexander asks, reaching for the hem of Daniel's nightshirt.

"Please," Daniel whispers, his heart pounding because he wants Alexander so much and it's broad daylight and everyone _knows_. 

Everyone knows and it's all right, and Daniel does his best to help Alexander pull the nightshirt up and then off. Lying there naked under fully-clothed Alexander does something to Daniel, and he wraps around him with all four limbs, clinging to that slender frame and hiding his face in one shoulder. Alexander strokes his hair and soothes him, holding him for a long time, even with Daniel's arousal pressed between them.

"Shy, sweet boy," he says softly, and just breathes with Daniel for a long time.


	19. Chapter 19

Alexander's hands are cool and dry and smooth as water-worn stone. Daniel has no choice but to melt under them as they make a comprehensive inventory of his body, mapping him and savoring every moment of it. He has praise for every inch of Daniel: his clear skin and its exact shade of sallow that Alexander calls ivory, the graceful sweep of his clavicles and the power in his arms and shoulders, the fine bones in his hands and the precise rose pink of his nipples. Alexander calls Daniel's scanty chest hair golden and soft, and rubs his face in it like a happy cat while Daniel clutches at the sheet and does his level best not to explode. Alexander moves like he has all the time in the world, and Daniel can't help a desperate, puppyish whimper.

"Alexander, please, please, I can't take much more of this!" Daniel gasps, and Alexander chuckles, lifting his head to kiss Daniel, sliding his tongue deep into his mouth and just pinning him there for a small eternity, fucking his mouth. Daniel moans and shudders under him, about to start begging again when Alexander wraps a hand around his cock and makes him cry out so loudly that he puts the pillow over his face in a desperate bid to muffle the noise.

"I really do forget just how young you are, Daniel," Alexander purrs and then slides down as Daniel gapes at him because hardly anyone has ever sucked him. 

In his brief career as school slut, Daniel had spent a lot of time on his knees and a lot of time with his thighs pressed together all nice and tight, but nobody would ever return the favor but a few of the younger boys, shy little things just learning. Now, Alexander breathes softly on Daniel and then swallows him. He does it easily, like he could just drink Daniel down, making a happy little humming noise. Daniel lets out something that's nearly a scream, hardly muffled at all by the pillow. Alexander growls deep in his chest and pins Daniel's hips to the bed, holding him there as he writhes. The baron is very strong for his age, and Daniel stays where Alexander holds him, gasping and panting so he won't scream, his mouth hanging open as Alexander pulls him impossibly deep, Daniel's cock buried in his throat.

Climaxing in shattering silence is another thing that reminds Daniel of school, and he struggles not to pant too harshly as he catches his breath. Alexander hums around Daniel as he softens, still holding him deep inside. Daniel whimpers and squirms at the sensory overload, gazing down at Alexander in awe.

"How do you even do that?" he gasps, and Alexander lets him go at last to laugh.

"True passion and long practice," he says, smiling up at Daniel before crawling up to lie beside him. He's still fully clothed, and only partially erect against Daniel's thigh. He puts one long arm and leg over Daniel, holding him close, his face tucked in against the side of Daniel's neck.

"Alexander," Daniel murmurs, "should I be doing something for you?"

"You are, sweet boy, just by being here," Alexander says, and Daniel can feel himself blushing all over.

"Really?" he hates the tiny, whispery way the word comes out, but he can't help it.

"Really," Alexander says, giving him an affectionate squeeze. "Besides, a man of my age needs to save his energy." He kisses the rim of Daniel's ear and then gently nibbles it, making him squirm and whine. Alexander chuckles, the tip of his tongue daintily tracing around and just barely into Daniel's ear, which is so good and so strange that all he can do is make a strangled noise and clutch at Alexander's waistcoat, the silk lining of his jacket unbearably smooth on Daniel's forearms. "So beautiful," Alexander murmurs, and Daniel whines, spent cock struggling to fill again.

"I wonder how much vitae you would yield," Alexander says, sounding equal parts amused and intrigued.

"V-vitae?" Daniel gasps, crying out softly as Alexander presses his lean thigh between his legs, rubbing against him where he's so sensitive and half-hard again already.

"Vitae is a powerful fluid distilled from human blood," he says, kissing Daniel's neck. "Don't worry, we would never take enough to hurt you."

Daniel shudders, not sure how much is from the words and how much is from Alexander's beautiful hand wrapping around him and squeezing gently. "I... I would l-let you," he gasps, and cries out as quietly as he can when Alexander does something deft and indescribable to his foreskin. His father used to threaten to have it cut off, and Daniel is once again grateful to still have it, struggling to muffle himself in Alexander's shoulder.

"I'm sure yours would be fine and clear," Alexander murmurs. "There are solutions of vitae that might help you sleep, and warding rituals to protect you." He cups Daniel's balls and then presses his fingertips up behind them. The pleasure is familiar, but so much more intense from deliberate fingers than incidental thrusting, and he can't quiet this cry, his thighs shaking and falling open to give Alexander better access. Alexander chuckles, kissing Daniel deeply as he keeps pressing steady and hard, right where Daniel needs it.

"Have you ever had anyone inside you, Daniel?" Alexander murmurs, and Daniel shudders in a mixture of fright and desire.

"N-no," he whispers, and doesn't draw his legs together, leaving himself open for Alexander.

"Would you like to try one finger?" he asks, and Daniel bites his lip, nodding. His whole skin feels hot and about half a size too small, and he closes his eyes as Alexander takes a little container from a drawer Daniel has yet to open, and coats his long fingers in it. They're slippery when they return to where they were, and Daniel does his best to relax as they glide over and over his hole. Alexander kisses the center of his chest and then suckles each nipple in turn, making Daniel whimper and writhe and almost not notice it when Alexander's forefinger slides into him.

"Ohh..." Daniel breathes, eyes wide as Alexander starts to just barely pull back and then push in again. Alexander smiles down at him and kisses him.

"Relax," he purrs, "we have all the time in the world."


	20. Chapter 20

Daniel has always heard of sodomy as a beastly, brutal thing that no decent Englishman would ever be interested in inflicting upon another, and he's dimly angry at being lied to as Alexander slowly and carefully works him open. Dimly is all he can manage, though, clutching at Alexander's jacket and letting out a soft cry with every move Alexander makes because he just can't help it. Pressure up behind his balls has always been good, but now Alexander is stroking whatever that is from the inside and Daniel's thighs are shaking where they try to grip his waist, his whole body flushed and weak.

"You have the most beautiful eyes," Alexander murmurs, and Daniel wishes that he could return the compliment, but Alexander's first two fingers are buried in him up to the knuckle and he can't remember how to speak. Alexander chuckles as though he knows exactly what Daniel is thinking. "Such a sweet boy," he says, kissing Daniel's forehead and pressing as deep as he can. It's so intense that it almost hurts, and Daniel chokes off a wail, fighting to keep from getting too loud.

"Please," Daniel whimpers as Alexander pulls back, unsure how to ask for more, and then moans helplessly as Alexander pushes back in with three fingers, stretching him wider and pressing just as deep. 

Daniel's legs give up completely, just falling open as Alexander fucks him slow and deep, and he can feel his eyes rolling back as Alexander bites and sucks at his nipples again. A twist of that elegant hand and Daniel feels like he's about to come, but he doesn't pass the point of no return, just brushing against it over and over until his belly is covered with the thin, clear fluid, that, like so many other things, he has no name for. Alexander increases the length and speed of his strokes, and Daniel tries to keep breathing. He forces himself to let go of Alexander with one hand, grabbing the headboard instead because he can't hurt the wood. He wishes that he had the words and the nerve to beg Alexander to fully join them, and then he isn't thinking anything as Alexander leans down to take his cock in his mouth and in a moment Daniel is coming, letting out a wail that he can do nothing to muffle.

Alexander is very patient with Daniel afterward, holding him close and murmuring soothingly in German. Daniel is in no position to parse any of it, but he loves Alexander's voice and makes a pleased little noise as he buries his face in the crook of Alexander's neck to breath in his strange, soothing scent as he loses track of time altogether.

"I meant to do something for you," Daniel murmurs at last, somewhere between genuinely contrite and too warm and loved to mind anything.

"So you did," Alexander says, amused and fond. "All that I require is for you to follow your own inclinations."

"In that case," Daniel mutters, as always having a hard time getting this sort of utterance out, "my inclination is to suck you."

"And how could I refuse your beautiful mouth?" Alexander asks, and lets Daniel pull away to arrange their bodies into the easiest configuration.

Stretched out on his belly with Alexander's lean thighs over his shoulders, Daniel sighs and leans in, just nuzzling Alexander's cock and breathing on it for a long moment. He's a little soft with age, but not too much, and he tastes the way he smells, the same sweet strangeness that underlies everything about him. Daniel sighs through his nose, swallowing Alexander as deep as he comfortably can. He doesn't mind being uncomfortable to get a little more, but he'd rather save that for later. Right now is just about tasting and learning the best touches. Even when he doesn't much care for the man involved, Daniel loves this, and with Alexander he's melting from the mouth down, his cock struggling to stand again, even though it aches. Alexander's hands on his head make Daniel whimper, and he lets them stroke and tug his hair, and gently guide him into a slow, indulgent rhythm. 

Daniel's lips are stretched and tingling already, and he moans softly to think of how they'll feel later, sore and used and wonderful. Alexander groans and strokes Daniel's hair, shamelessly luxuriating in his mouth. So many of Daniel's trysts have been quick and secret that having the time to savor this is almost unprecedented. He hums with contentment, the sound rising to muffled moan as Alexander starts to pull him back and then push him down again, always giving him plenty of time to adjust. In fact, he's so gentle about it that it's mostly Daniel's idea to start really fucking his mouth on Alexander. There are certainly no objections, and Daniel falls into it for a while, until his pleased moans become a groan of exasperation at finding himself hard again.

"What's wrong, dearest?" Alexander murmurs, and pulls Daniel off to make him speak. Daniel whimpers and squirms, feeling that he's flushed all over his face and down to his shoulders. When he shamefacedly explains, Alexander just laughs. "Ah, youth," he says, eyes sparkling as he gazes fondly down at Daniel. "I would enjoy touching you again or watching you touch yourself, it's up to you."

Daniel whines sharply at the thought of being watched, and can't help rutting against the mattress. Alexander murmurs encouragement and guides Daniel back to his task. Rocking against the bed feels better than it has any right to, and Daniel whimpers, sucking harder because it will be beyond humiliating if he can't bring Alexander off before his own climax. That dash of embarrassment only makes things worse, and Daniel whines, speeding up. It's hard to look up like this, but he rolls his eyes upward to see Alexander shuddering and biting at his lip. He looks down at Daniel, holding his gaze until he has tip his head back, shuddering all over as he comes. Daniel moans and barely has time to swallow it before he's grinding desperately into the bed one last time and crying out, shaking all over and coming so hard it makes his ears ring.

For a while Daniel just rests with his head on Alexander's thigh, both of them catching their breath. At last Alexander pulls Daniel up to hold him properly, sighing as Daniel nestles in against his chest. "You are unconscionably lovely," Alexander murmurs, and all Daniel can offer in response is a slightly cracked giggle. Alexander just smiles, lying there and petting Daniel as if they have all the time in the world.


End file.
